


Off the Line (Prompt #3)

by twowritehands



Series: Letterkenny Showdown 2018 [6]
Category: Letterkenny (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, letterkenny showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: Wayne is looking for love (and a shirt) and Darry misses a day of work, so Wayne checks on him and finds everything he needs.





	Off the Line (Prompt #3)

**Author's Note:**

> Again, down to the wire with no time to polish! I had TOO many ideas and tried running in so many directions with this one. 
> 
>  
> 
> Short and sweet is hard to do with otps.

**Prompt # 3 Wayne/Daryl Daryl keeps stealing Wayne's shirts to sleep in bc they smell like him and are just a little too big.**

 

Wayne plucked dry laundry from the clothesline, hefted the full basket under one arm and strode into the house.

“Katy!” he hollered through the house.

“WHAT?” she called from upstairs.

Wayne ascended the stairs, shouting ahead of himself, “Where is my purple flannel?”

“CLOTHESLINE!” Katy bellowed and now Wayne could tell she was in her bathroom.

“No it's not!” he shouted. He passed the open door to Katy's room and caught a glimpse of her in her bathroom straightening her hair.

“I hung it on the line just this morning, bro, “ she said with her trademark tone of boredom and certainty.

“It wasn't fucking there!” In his room, he dropped the basket on the bed and turned to go through his dresser. The drawers stuck a time or two, but after checking all five of them, he still hadn't found the shirt he sought. He went to his closet, which at this time of year only held winter clothes.

Katy appeared in his bedroom door as he pushed aside hanging turtlenecks and puffy coats. “I promise you it was in the wash this morning and on the line by 7.”

“Well then we need to get better fucking clips or something because this is the tenth shirt I've lost to the fucking wind.”

He selected a blue snap button flannel shirt and laid it on the bed then pulled out his best pair of jeans and his clean pair of non work boots.

“Hot date?” Katy asked as she noted the assembly of his best clothes.

“Yep,” Wayne croaked.

“Get after it, bro. Who is she?”

“Well for starters, he's not a she.”

Katy's lip-glossed mouth went into a perfect lowercase o and her eyes bugged a little. “Dating guys again? I thought that was just a highschool experimental phase for you.”

“Sometimes experiments need repeating.”

:::

Wayne grumbled on the way home that evening, alone. Failed conversation buzzed through his head. He could've said this better. Could have been funnier here or there. Jonathan's joke made sense now, but Wayne should have laughed then. And what if when he said that one thing, Jonathan heard it the wrong way?

Wayne had been going on dates and going on other dates for a year now and it seemed a good fit was damned hard to find among the local women so he'd reached the conclusion to date fellas like he had briefly done in high school.

But after tonight's failed date he couldn't help but dwell on the last good thing he had with anyone, which was Rosie. If he was brutally honest, what he wanted was a guy version of Rosie, who had enjoyed curling up with Wayne, a dog and a good book. She liked TV and asked questions about the farm and ran her fingers through his hair… She didn't get upset if Wayne didn't text back right away, and she liked being the big spoon.

Though their relationship hadn't been particularly long, it was so far the best he'd ever had. Simple. Good conversation, good sex, and space to breathe.

Before Rosie, Angie had had her moments, but the relationship had always been one sided. Wayne gave and she took. Angie demanded and Wayne relented. At the time, the break up had been painful but now he could see that it had been for the best. He'd lost five years to stress and quiet resentment. Catching her cheating had been an unintentional jailbreak.

Wayne parked his truck and made his way into the quiet house. Though he was moving as quietly as he could, he knew there was no sneaking passed Katy. Come morning, he'd have to fess up to the fact that he'd bombed yet another date. And he'd have to admit that though his return to dating guys had a rocky start, he wasn't ready to give up. There had to be a guy out there that fit into Wayne's life… right?

He went to bed with a mind turned toward his touch-and-go history with love. Rosie,  Angie, and before Angie …

Memories put a familiar twist and tug in his chest. The summer before grade 10… when he learned so much about himself and when love songs had started to make a hell of a lot of sense.

But with a deep breath, Wayne neatly skirted that deep, dark well with the razor sharp practice that only years could hone.

No point dwelling on the impossible.

And, anyway, one summer courtship at sixteen could only be described as puppy love. Right?

Sometimes Wayne did kinda think that if that puppy love had gone differently, he never would have been in a place where Angie could get her hooks in him.

:::::::

The next morning, Katy was the only person downstairs.

“Good morning, Wayne. Darry just called out.”

“What, now?”

“Darry just called to say he's sick.  He sounds god awful.”

“Sick?”

“10-4. Should I call Jivin’ Pete or maybe JB or Tyson to come help for the day?”

“Better make it Tyson or JB. Don't want De-gens like Jiving Pete hanging around.”

It was the most boring day of work Wayne could ever remember suffering. Tyson was a hard worker and did nothing wrong, but he also didn't do the chores the same way Darry did and the difference irked Wayne. And talk at the produce stand lagged without Darry's unique contributions.

Bored, Wayne wandered into the house to find Katy packing bowls of soup.

“I'm taking this over to Darry and checking on him.”

Wayne froze. Belated worry rippled beneath his skin. Darry never called out, he should have checked on him sooner.

“Did he sound so bad on the phone you don't think he can make his own soup?”

Katy nodded. Wayne took the food from her hands. “I'll take it over there then.”

She was surprised but relented with a half shrug. Likely she had a hundred other things to do and this checked a big one off the list. Wayne grabbed his keys and carried the neatly packaged soup out the door.

:::::

Darry lived not far away in a small old blue house. Wayne let himself in, where it smelled the way it always had: musty with a hint of clove. Usually, Wayne avoided coming inside this house. It made certain things harder to forget.

He sat the soup on the counter as he turned down a short hallway. Pictures of Darry and his mum on the walls showed Darry getting bigger and hairier and his mother shrinking and losing all her color to repeated cycles of chemotherapy.

He found Darry curled up in his bed, paler than usual. His nose was red, his eyes droopy. And he was wearing a familiar purple flannel shirt.

Wayne's jaw dropped. “That's my shirt!”

Darry giggled, delirious. “Yeah,” he clutched it around himself all snuggly and grinning like an idiot.

Wayne blinked a bunch of times. “What are you doing wearing my shirt, Darry?”

“It smells like you,” he mumbled. “love the way you smell, buddy. Remember?”

Wayne remembered, and it felt like falling through a trapdoor that he’d known better than to step on.

_Sixteen. Taking breaks from summer chorin. Linked pinkies and shy kisses. Chases through the back fields. Finding private shady spots to pass an hour. Darry leaning into him and taking a deep, deep breath, murmuring with lips against Wayne's neck, “hmmm you smell so good.”_

The memories knocked his breath right out of him. Things long put to bed came alive again. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked back over his shoulder at Darry who was burying his face in the crook of his arms, inhaling the fabric.

“What the fuck you takin my shirts fer, Darry?”

He gave a hoarse little hum of thought and bumped a shoulder. “Don't like feeling alone.”

Another memory slammed into Wayne. The very ones this house always teased to the forefront of his mind. The ones that were the sweetest and thus the most painful.

_Darry's mom had succumbed to the cancer that for years had been without mercy. And because they had seen the way things were going, she had arranged for her son to be legally emancipated at sixteen, to save him from the foster system._

_This meant Darry was able to legally inherit the house and live there alone as he finished high school. But that first summer, he wasn't alone..._

_“I hate being alone. Stay with me?” Darry had asked, his fingers curling through Wayne's and pulling him into the bed.  Wayne had slept curled against Darry every night that summer._

Shaking those memories from his head, Wayne stood from the bed and paced the small room. Darry lifted an arm, making weak motions,  “Remember when mum died? You stayed with me?”

Wayne's first attempt to speak failed.  He cleared his throat, “Was just thinkin’ about it.”

Darry kept his hand extended. “You made me happy even though I was so sad.”

The past exploded out of its locked box, and a helpless Wayne took Darry's hand and allowed himself to be pulled into the bed as if he was seventeen again.

Darry spooned Wayne, who noted his super hot to the touch skin. He remembered the soup and pulled away to fetch it from the kitchen.

Katy had made his favorite, so Wayne didn't have trouble spoon feeding it to him. He must have been starving because he ate the whole bowl without a break. Wayne put a cold compress to his forehead.

Darry kept babbling, delirious. He looked right at Wayne and said, “Hm. I wish the real Wayne would give me another chance.”

Wayne swallowed hard. “What. Uh. So what makes yous think he won't?”

“I messed up. Ya only get one chance with a guy like that.”

“Now what if he don't count teenage attempts as a real chance?”

Darry smiled and purred. “Oooh, I like that idea.”

“So. So you’ll try again with him. Like if he asked?”

“In a fuckin’ heartbeat.”

Wayne breathed out. Blinked. Then shot to his feet, his Nurturing side now turned up to eleven. Darry needed to stay hydrated, fed, and comfortable.

“I got ya, bud,” Wayne murmured when Darry fought the cold compress. “I'm right here.”

::::::

By morning, Darry's fever broke. He woke up clear eyed but weak. Wayne had slept in the bed, too, but he hadn't crowded Darry and had stayed above the covers and fully dressed.

When Darry sat up and blinked away the sleep, looking around at him in confusion and mussed curls going all directions, Wayne's heart soared. But he checked it behind a sly grin.

“You have all my shirts, bud.”

Darry looked down at the purple flannel shirt and blushed. “Been stealin’ them off the clothesline for years.”

“I deduced as much. What I'm asking is why.”

Darry shrugged. “I miss you sometimes at night. Something that smells like you… makes things not s’bad.”

“But you said it was just bi-curiosity that lead to nothing. A failed experiment. We should just be buddy's. That's what you said.”

Darry harrumphed,  “I also said I wasn't doin’ schneef. Teenagers lie and teenagers who just lost their mum will do anything to avoid more pain than they already got.”

Wayne's lips parted. “Those fucking hockey players.”

Darry nodded.

_It only happened once because Wayne beat the shit out of the first to try, but hockey players chirped about Wayne dating boys--at the time, that was Darry specifically. Name calling always hurt Darry more than a fist ever could._

_Wayne would never forget the look on Darry's face when the last hockey player was down for the count and Wayne turned toward his boyfriend to take his hand and comfort him… It was like Wayne was looking into eyes he never met before.  Closed off. Angry. Someone who moved away like Wayne's touch was a poison._

“I already had to deal with mum leaving me. I couldn't… I couldn't fight the world, too.”

Wayne gripped Darry's hand. “I would have fought the world for you, bud. And that's as true now as it was then.”

Darry gasped like he was speechless.

Wayne felt of his forehead again, just to be sure the fever wasn't back. It wasn't but he let his fingers linger.

“Whaddya say we give it the ol’ college try, then?”

Darry released a ragged breath. They clumsily hooked their fingers together, tight, a little shaky on Darry's end. Wayne watched intently, waiting.

Finally, Darry nodded his silent yes.

Wayne breathed again and leaned in for a smooch.

**Author's Note:**

> That's the end of the fic challenge!! 
> 
> 2 writers with 3 prompts in 3 days!
> 
> HOW DID WE DO??
> 
> Vote for your favorite writer by leaving kudos here on the best works and likes on tumblr posts under the tag Letterkenny Showdown


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